by Larry Niven
“I didn’t hear this story until I was pretty old,” Burning Tower said, “and I didn’t know why Twisted Cloud never claimed the gold in the hill. She’s the only one who knew, barring Father—”
“Hush, child,” said Twisted Cloud.
“Sorry.”
Sandry grinned at them both. “There’s a story here?”
Sails rose aloft and caught the wind. There were shouts from the stern deck. People on the docks did things with ropes, then shouted again.
“Well. Raw gold carries manna, you know, but the magic is uncontrollable,” Twisted Cloud said. “Wizards go crazy at the touch of gold. Spells go crazy. Not many can handle it. Still, even wild manna may heal or rejuve-nate or—anyway. What I told Burning Tower, in an incautious moment—”
“We’re off! We’re sailing!” Burning Tower exclaimed. The docks were flowing past them. “Sorry.”
“Please,” Sandry said, “go on.”
Twisted Cloud thought a bit before she spoke. “People give raw gold to a shaman. Payment for spells, services. A shaman uses the manna and leaves refined gold behind. I found out that night that raw gold makes me horny. I always get pregnant when I’m around it. After five children, I knew I didn’t want any more to do with raw gold. The gold stayed put, and my father’s skeleton too, until Whandall needed it twenty years later.
“My oldest child is Clever Squirrel, and she is Coyote’s daughter, sure enough. She’ll find what that cursed bird is hiding if anyone can.”
For a time they enjoyed the view of land sliding past, waves growing larger, the sails belling over them, the to-and-fro surge of a ship cleaving water. Sandry’s belly grew uneasy. He thought he was hiding it until Twisted Cloud laughed and touched his ears with her fingertips, and then it was all right. Hah! Wagons must wobble too.
At midmorning, the sails hung slack and the ship slowed. Shouting wafted up from belowdecks.
“Curse,” Twisted Cloud said quietly.
“What?” Tower asked.
“The oarsmen. They hate. They can’t do anything about it, so I have to feel it.”
Sandry looked into the midships pit where twenty oarsmen were at work. Two rows of men manned the oars: not enough to manage a decent speed. An oarmaster was cracking air over their heads with a lash. “Without them, the ship doesn’t move,” he said. And then he sucked air.
The girls looked at him. Sandry said, “Regapisk.”
Regapisk, no longer Lord, was second on the port side, nearly naked, sitting on a yellow cloak or blanket. A mottled blue bruise marked his face. Regapisk snarled; his muscles bunched. He pulled, then lifted the oar, then pulled. The oar surged, lifted, dropped, surged in tandem with the rest.
Regapisk was better at rowing than Sandry would have guessed.
The women were looking at him. Uncomfortably, Sandry said, “Skip it. Twisted Cloud, what can you tell me about this wizards’ gathering?”
“No magic,” she said. When Tower and Sandry both laughed, she said, “I’m the one who has to remember. The locals are very hard on anyone who uses flagrantly powerful magic.”
“What do they do?”
“I don’t know,” the shaman said. “Nothing esoteric, I’d guess. Drowning, maybe.”
The wind picked up an hour later. The ship heeled over at a different angle and seemed to be struggling, and the shelter of the small cabin was welcome. Wind whistled through the small round windows carved into the side of the cabin.
Servants had been setting the table in the forecabin. Now they took out little wooden rails and set them into holes in the table so that the food and drink wouldn’t slide off. “Lunch is served,” a white-coated crewman said. He bowed. “Ladies. Lord Sandry, the captain would like a moment with you back aft, if you please.” He pointed to the rear of the ship.
There was a narrow walkway on either side of the oar pits. The sailor had indicated that Sandry should take the walkway on the right, the high side of the ship as it leaned far over. The oars had been brought into the ship now, and the oarsmen were slumped in place, not looking up. All but Regapisk, who looked around warily. Sandry didn’t think he’d looked up at him.
The captain and two officers were at the back of the ship. There were two more men holding wooden bars thicker than spears. These were attached to posts that went down on each side of the ship.
“Steersman, bring her up, there!” the captain shouted. “Lee steersman, haul in hard!”
“Aye aye.” The man on the low side of the ship was straining. “Maybe need some help here, skipper.”
The captain nodded, and another crewmen went over to help. They strained at pulling on the wooden contraption.
The steersman on the high side of the ship seemed relaxed. “No bite on the windward side,” he shouted.
The captain nodded. “Stand by. Okay, lads, steady as she goes. Ah. Lord Sandry.”
“Captain Saziff. Are we in trouble?”
Saziff grinned. A big man, gold earrings, a bright red shirt of what was probably silk, and a dark wool coat with gold lace on the sleeves.
Sandry nodded to himself. He could understand dressing to impress the men….
“Trouble, My Lord? Not in this little blow. Not trouble, just delay. How bad do you need to get there before dark?”
“Well—we were told we’d be there with plenty of daylight.”
“Wind, My Lord. Not from the usual direction today. We’ll get there, but we’ll have to tack a lot. Be surprised if we’re there before dark.”
“Have we choices?”
The captain nodded. “For four gold, I can hire mers to help us.” He shrugged. “Ordinarily I’d just do it and eat the cost, but we just had a bad run up the coast, and I can’t afford it. I told your harbormaster this is a tricky time of year for the Avalon run. Usually the wind is steady from the west, but it’s backed around southerly now.”
Whatever that means, Sandry thought. “Isn’t this your regular run?”
“Bless you, no, sir. There’s not enough traffic from Tep’s Town to Avalon to support a regular run! I’m headed to Condigeo and Black Warrior and then on further south to Two Capes. May even run right on around and up north on the inside, if I can get cargo. No, we were chartered to take you over and bring you back, and we’ll do that, all right, but we won’t make the harbor tonight without help from the mers.”
“And they charge four gold?”
“Might be less, but once you hire them, you’d better have the money,” Saziff said. “And I don’t have it, My Lord.” He grinned. “Tell you what, though—for four gold I can get you into the harbor ahead of time and we can have a bit of a show for the ladies as well.”
Four gold. Sandry doubted they’d paid more than ten gold for the whole passage. But there was no way to know if the captain was telling the truth or not, and it would cost more than four gold to stay an extra day in Avalon, from everything Sandry had heard. “All right.” He dug into his pouch. “Four it is.”
The captain took the money without expression. “Raililiee, take over,” he said.
One of the officers said, “Aye aye. I relieve you, sir.”
“I’m going forward to negotiate with the mers. Stand by to trim sails.”
“Aye aye, skipper.”
Saziff led the way forward again. Sandry looked down at Regapisk. By both law and custom, they shouldn’t speak or even recognize each other. Sandry remembered, years ago, some older boys were pounding on him. Reggy made them stop and helped him clean up his clothes. There were probably other things Reggy had done for him over the years, but that was the incident Sandry remembered best.
They reached the foredeck. “Ladies,” the captain called. “Come see something you’ve never seen before!”
Tower and Twisted Cloud came out to watch. The captain leaned down over the bow rail. Sandry leaned over too and was surprised to see a big fish swimming there.
A big fish, as big as Sandry, maybe bigger.
The captain shouted som
ething, and the fish stood up on its tail, most of its body out of the water, and skittered alongside the ship.
“Oooh!” Tower shouted.
The captain shouted something else, and then threw a rope over the side. There was a big loop woven into the end of the rope, and the other end was tied to a big post on the deck. The fish made strange noises. Its toothy mouth was grinning widely.
Another of the big fish came up and put its bill into the rope loop. It began to swim, and the boat heeled over even more.
“Trim sail!” the captain shouted.
Crewmen did things to the sails. The boat came more upright. The big fish pulled, and the captain threw more lines off into the water. Other fish put their bills through them and began to pull.
“On course now,” Saziff said. He clapped his hands.
More fish leaped from the water. They would charge at the boat as if they would hit it, then dart off just at the last moment. Others jumped right over the ones pulling the boat. Tower and Twisted Cloud cheered.
“Smart fish!” Tower said.
“Not exactly fish, My Lady,” the skipper said. “They’re mers, of course. Lots of names for them, I guess dolphins is the most common. They breathe air like you and me.”
Twisted Cloud was staring at them. “Magic, lots of magic, but only the ones that are pulling, not the others. The others don’t seem to be magic at all.”
Saziff shrugged. “Don’t know, My Lady. Used to be no one would take ship without a wizard aboard, but last ten, twenty years now, they’re mostly just passengers, nothing for them to do. I never did know much about magic anyway.”
Chapter Eleven
Avalon
An hour later, they could see a dark shape looming up out of the water, and gradually it became an island. As they got closer, the wind died out entirely, and they took the sails down. The dolphins pulled them closer, then dropped the ropes. The Oarmaster shouted, and they rowed into a horseshoe-shaped harbor. There were docks built out from the shore, rows of them. A half dozen ships as large or larger than Angie Queen were tied alongside the docks, and there was room for twice that many more.
They came alongside a dock, but the ship stood off from it a good ten feet as the sailors passed lines back and forth. Sandry and the women stood at the rail and looked in fascination at Avalon.
He saw a sandy beach, with children playing, some half-clad, some naked. Sea animals with dark fur and flippers frolicked with the children. Half-grown dolphins played in the waves just off the shore. Here and there, adult humans lounged in hammocks. Blond youths with deep tans and muscles that any Lords officer would be proud of brought the loungers tall colored drinks. Teenage boys and girls played at some kind of game with a large leather ball.
Behind the beach was a row of brightly colored shops mostly set as storefronts into buildings that looked like warehouses. There was a warehouse built onto one dock, and the gaudy building on the dock next to it was clearly a restaurant.
“It looks—magic,” Burning Tower said.
“It is magic,” Twisted Cloud said. “The most magical place I’ve ever perceived.”
“And, I’ve been told, the most expensive,” Sandry said. He pointed at the dock. All along it were small stalls selling art objects, hats, clothing. “Prices in gold and silver, not shells.”
Brightly painted shops crowded to left and right on the main street. Beyond those, and above them on the hills, were less gaudy structures: houses. They were charming in their differences, Sandry had thought as he watched them grow larger as the ship neared the docks. But they had certainly not been made by magic. The houses—even the oversize one that must be the hotel—showed all the crudity of human workmanship.
“I’d hoped to see one of the magic castles the wizards are always talking about,” Sandry said.
“Not here,” Twisted Cloud said. There was awe in her voice. “Thank you for sending me, Sandry. I never expected to see this place.”
Burning Tower clapped her hands. “Me either. The Condigeo captains come here, but I don’t think I ever met anyone else who did. But it feels magic even if we don’t see any. Why is that?”
“It’s because you don’t see anything big and magical,” Twisted Cloud said. “Other places, the wizards did their spectacular tricks and used up all the manna. Condigeo. There’s a whole city under silt and mud where their harbor used to be. No one can get to it, not even the mers. Ran out of magic and just settled into the muck. I know of other cities with collapsed castles. But there are places south and east along the Golden Road that still have big magical palaces.”
“How?” Sandry asked.
Twisted Cloud shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve never been south or east of Condigeo. But there must be a supply, a way to renew the manna.” She grinned. “And this time I’m not holding information to trade. If I knew I’d tell you. You’ve earned anything I know just for bringing me here!”
“Look up there!” Burning Tower shouted.
Color flashed across the hills. A tremendous bowl was set below the highest hill. Colors played in the rock and spilled out like liquids along the hillside. The bowl looked as if it had been blown like a huge rainbow bubble, then trimmed off like the top of a soft-boiled egg. “Magic shaped that one,” Sandry said.
Twisted Cloud said, “That must be Meetpoint, where they hold the seminars. It’s old.”
The sailors hauled on ropes and pulled them to the dock. The crew laid a gangplank, then barred the passengers from reaching it. They waited until another ship tied up to the other side of the dock and a dozen passengers stood at its rail.
Presently a man robed in purple strode aboard, escorted by Captain Saziff. Sandry couldn’t help staring. He must have weighed four hundred pounds. He was not just tall, but billowy, a smooth curve of a man. Within his hood, his face was white rimmed in black, split by a wide, wide grin.
“Orca,” Twisted Cloud whispered.
Sandry nodded. Whale. Clearly those were not the colors of a human being, but of an orca.
He clapped thunderously, waited for silence, and said, “I’m Schoolmaster Wheereezz. If you’re lookers or tellers, welcome to Avalon! We take most forms of money. The exchange is that gray building left of the last dock. If you’re wizards of any kind, welcome also! We only impose one special rule,” the sage said. “Whatever you know of magic, don’t use it here. If you’ve come to learn magic, well and good, but don’t practice it. This island is a refuge for mer folk. Here we can be human, as long as the manna holds out. Magicians also reside here, particularly elderly ones who need rich background manna to survive.”
The captain called, “Be aboard at the third hour tomorrow. We leave when it suits My Lord Sandry, and if you miss the ship, you’ll forfeit your fare and have to make a deal with some other captain less generous than me.” Then the passengers were allowed to spill ashore. They were joined by passengers from the other ship, where Wheereezz had repeated his speech.
When the crowd thinned, Twisted Cloud said, “Let’s get to Meetpoint. I can’t attend the seminars—I’m not an invited guest—but maybe Squirrel’s there.”
“We should book rooms,” Sandry said.
“It’s the same direction. Lord Sandry, these wizards tend to arrange their own housing. Squirrel’s staying at one of the houses. The hotel’s expensive. They’ll have rooms. We can take our time.”
“Shops,” said Tower.
So they walked north toward the bowl. Tower tripped over a loose board. Sandry caught her hand, and they walked that way for the rest of the block. They passed along the warehouses, then along a line of shops.
Goods were arrayed facing the street, unguarded, stealable. Guarded by magic? Sandry wondered. Or was it only that a thief would have to escape the island? And there were no Lordkin guards at all. No one was armed. He could walk the street with a pretty girl wearing expensive jewelry and never worry.
A shop built into a huge conch shell sold kitchenware made of shells or dec
orated with shells, a thousand kinds of shells. Burning Tower bought two fragile-looking geegaws. Another sold household tools. “Wizardry supplies,” Twisted Cloud said of a shop that sold dolls and doll-making equipment. A produce market…expensive. A bakery. Fish…absolutely fresh, and cheap, prices in shells rather than metal. And another building: buckets hanging on the wall, a large bell in a tower, bored-looking men sitting at a table playing a game.
“Avalon Fire Station,” Sandry read.
“Oh!” Tower said. “Will you talk with them?”
“I don’t know.” How? Introduce myself as the fire chief from Tep’s Town? I might learn something, but I might just make a fool of myself. Learning something could be important, but letting people know that the Lords Witness of Lordshills have fools for officials would be terrible.
A restaurant. Sandry’s stomach rumbled approval, and the ladies agreed. There were plenty of tables, and the waitress led them through the large room to a deck outside. There was a good view of the harbor, but Tower sat across from Sandry, and he kept looking at her, ignoring the flashing water and cavorting dolphins and the bustle along the beach.
They ate deep-fried swordfish (cheap) and slivers of potato (expensive) under a hot sun. It was a good day not to think about Tep’s Town, or terror birds, or Regapisk chained to an oar. A day to think about how good Burning Tower looked wolfing swordfish, then fresh oranges (expensive).
They walked on. Where the shops ran out, they turned uphill toward the bowl.
At the entrance they found a young man, robed, with his hood thrown back to free long blond hair. He looked them over dubiously. “Sigils?”
“We’re looking for my daughter?” Twisted Cloud said with a question in her voice. “Clever Squirrel? She’s attending.”
The man smiled. His teeth came to needle points; there looked to be too many. Either he filed them or he was a mer. “I know her. She wouldn’t be interested in this. It’s Hedjeraa talking about how to walk and talk and dress like they can really do magic.”